Tag: Trump

The Epstein Files: The Hoax Within a Hoax

The news media has found its current raison d’être in Trump’s reneging his campaign pledge to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, leading to myriad conspiracy theories.

This happens, of course, whenever a tourniquet gets applied to information sources. My own thinking is that Trump’s pledge was a calculated “hoax” of his own weave in which he’s now entangled.

As Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s high profile defense lawyer, informs us, “I was Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer. I know the facts, some of which I can’t disclose because it is privileged or subject to court-imposed sealing orders. But what I can disclose makes several important things clear: that Epstein never created a client list. The FBI interviewed alleged victims who named several ‘clients.’ These names have been redacted. The courts have also sealed negative information about some of the accusers to protect them. Neither the Justice Department nor FBI interviewed alleged victims who named several ‘clients.’ I know who they are. They don’t include any current officeholders. We don’t know whether the accusations are true.”

What remains troubling is that key portions of this testimony—especially the names—were redacted. As a result, we may never learn the identities of the public figures who may have participated in Epstein’s trafficking ring, one of whose victims died by suicide in April.

As for the alleged thousands of extant videos showing public figures engaged in sexual activity, these claims appear to trace back to Attorney General Pam Bondi. She, too, promised to release Epstein-related materials supposedly sitting on her desk. Yet, like Dershowitz, PBS investigators found no evidence such videos exist (AI Overview)

What cannot be easily dismissed is the disturbing nature of Epstein’s death:

His cellmate had been removed shortly beforehand.

Guards did not carry out their cell surveillance rounds.

Two minutes and fifty-three seconds of the cell video were erased (wired, July 15, 2025).

All of this won’t deter the politicians and media from churning their conspiracies. It makes for great political theater. Politics, of course, has never been blameless of gamesmanship, frequently without limits.

House speaker Mike Johnson’s adjourning the House early for a six-week hiatus serves only to thicken the conspiracy broth.

rj

Trump Environmental Rollbacks: Travesty in the Making

The Trump administration is accelerating its broad assault on environmental protections and climate change mitigation, putting both public health and the planet at risk. It began with the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, a pact signed by 200 nations.

Dismantling Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, Trump has rolled back roughly 125 environmental policies in just two months, issuing executive orders to expand oil and gas drilling on public lands and increase logging in national forests.

Meanwhile, 1,600 workers have been cut from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), undermining critical weather forecasting and public safety.

Aid to developing countries for green initiatives, once provided through the International Partners Group, has been halted.

FEMA, responsible for disaster relief, is under review.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—established by Richard Nixon in response to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—has pivoted to pro-fossil fuel advocacy. Forget about EVs, charging stations, or clean energy incentives.

It doesn’t stop there. Reuters reports today that the Department of Energy is considering slashing millions in funding for two major carbon capture projects in Louisiana and Texas. These projects, once fully operational, could remove an estimated two million metric tons of carbon annually.

Long standing congressional mandated legislation such as the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Noise Reduction Act, and the Endangered Species Act face Trump’s bludgeoning. The courts must act to stop the carnage.

All of this comes as the world falls short of its pledge to limit warming to 3.6°F (1.5°C) above pre-industrial levels.

Trump, of course, remains unbothered. He has long dismissed climate change as a “hoax.”

Unfortunately, we will all pay an incalculable price for electing a renegade despot, mindlessly sabotaging the public’s welfare and our children’s future.

—rj

No Other Land: A Story That Must Be Told

The Academy Awards take place tonight, but I may not watch.

I have misgivings, particularly about the industry’s apparent exclusion of films that highlight the Palestinian plight in Israel.

Like many others, I don’t miss theaters. It’s nice just lounging in an easy chair, scrolling through endless streaming choices on a big-screen TV, microwaved popcorn at hand. Traditional studios have taken the hint, shifting their priorities toward digital platforms.

A few times, I’ve ve been tempted to return to the theater to see films like Top Gun: Maverick for its effects, or Oppenheimer, for its brilliant portrayal of a conflicted scientist. But I always hold off, knowing that within months, I can rent or buy the film and avoid the steep ticket prices.

Now comes another film, a documentary No Other Land, winner of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Gotham Award for Best Documentary, now an Oscar nominee.

Yet no American studio dares to sponsor it.

Jointly directed by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, No Other Land lays bare the struggles of Masafer Yatta, a West Bank community facing near-daily assaults from Israeli Defense Forces and encroaching settlers who want them gone, the latter, an updated version of the Ku Klux Klan. The IDF claims it needs the land for a military training base.

Two weeks before the film’s Oscar nomination, masked settlers stormed Masafer Yatta, destroying homes. In one instance, caught on film, a resident was shot in the stomach. The filmmakers themselves have been harassed, even shot at, over five years of production.

Palestinian director Basel Adra, a Masafer Yatta resident, has been targeted multiple times. Yet he refuses to leave the land where his family has lived for generations.

His Israeli co-director, Yuval Abraham, told The New York Times:
“I look at Basel, who’s living a much more difficult life than myself, and as long as he’s continuing, I feel like I also have to continue. Even if reality is only changing for the worse, it’s not as if we know what would happen if there is no documentation.”

So far, the film has reached just 23 American theaters. Still, the directors hope for broader exposure to awaken audiences to Israel’s deepening colonization of the West Bank and shift public perception.

But in America, supporting Palestinian rights often invites accusations of antisemitism. Trump has proposed deporting Palestinian student protesters. As for Gaza, he advocates expelling its 2 million inhabitants without a right of return.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book, The Message, devotes half its pages to his time in the West Bank. Some criticize him for omitting Hamas’ attack on Israel and its atrocities. Daniel Berner of The Atlantic calls Coates’s analysis simplistic. Yet liberal Israelis, though a minority, may find his perspective compelling.

Coates focuses on the West Bank, not Gaza. In an interview with New York Magazine, he remarked: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel.”

As expected, some have labeled him antisemitic. The New Republic sees it differently, calling the backlash a massive media failing: “Coates is not antisemitic to defend Palestinian human rights” (Shiner, October 2, 2024).

If No Other Land makes it to my local theater, I’ll give up my easy chair, venture out to the theater, pay the ticket price, not only to witness a remarkable documentary, undertaken at great risk, but to lend my support to a story centered in truths that must be told.

RJoly

Ambush at the White House: A Hero Humiliated

Zelensky arrived at the White House, mocked openly by Trump for not wearing a suit. Zelensky soon discovered that the anticipated signing of an agreement for access to 50% of Ukraine’s minerals offered no security guarantees. Unwilling to sign, Zelensky was lured into an ambush before a gathered press. If you are defined by the friends you keep, then the reality sinks in: Trump’s friend is Vladimir Putin. In what followed. he lavished praise for the dictator, who he said can be trusted to keep his word.

As usual, Trump couldn’t get the facts straight. Boasting of the US giving Ukraine $340b, the truth is $119b, a not inconsiderable sum, but Europe has given more at $138b.

Zelensky was expelled and the planned celebratory luncheon canceled.

Trump appears ready to cut off all military aid to the besieged nation. Meanwhile, the Russian press has been exuberant in its praise of Trump.

We are in a shameful moment of a fascist government, run by incompetents, trampling on dissent, imperiling our obligations to the marginalized, abandoning its allies, and subordinating itself to corporate oligarchy.

Stand up for Ukraine. Incorporate its flag into your FB profile. Support the boycott movement, the public protests. It isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s coming cuts to Medicaid, the suspension of environmental and health safeguards, the cut off of aid to developing nations.

America is engaged in a war—a moral one. We can win, and with your help, we will.

–RJoly

Putin’s Aggression, Trump’s Betrayal, and Europe’s Challenge

  • Photo by Ukraine.ua on September 07, 2023.

You may not have heard of Tim Snyder, but he’s worth knowing. A Yale professor of Eastern European history and authority on the Holocaust, his vitae includes sixteen books and many academic awards. A Brown and Oxford graduate, he speaks five European languages and reads in ten.

I mention him because of his ardent defense of a free Ukraine, whose fate now lies in jeopardy. This month he’s been in Ukraine, a participant in a dedication of a new underground school for children a mere twenty miles from the front and within twenty second reach of Russian cruise missiles.

Today marks the end of three years of Ukraine’s brave resistance to its Russian invaders, who now occupy twenty percent of its land. The school has to be underground, as Russian targets include schools as well as hospitals, civilian housing, energy infrastructure, and even shopping malls.

Now Ukraine confronts its most insidious danger—Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine. Snyder reminds us that Trump cares little about Europe. What matters is making deals in exchange for profit as seen in his demand Ukraine grant rights to fifty percent of its minerals. Like Gaza, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, it’s about adding real estate to his portfolio.

Ukraine’s destiny now lies in European hands, but their commitment isn’t assured. Rewarding Kremlin aggression makes more aggression likely, particularly involving the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, each with a considerable Russian minority similar to that of Ukraine.

There are ways you can help Ukrainians. Snyder sponsors Documenting Ukraine, which affords Ukrainians a voice. There is also Come Back Arrive, supporting Ukrainian soldiers; RAZOM assisting civilians; and United 24, the Ukrainian government’s site for donations.

Few will read my lengthy post, but for those who do, donate, if you can—and while at it, join the resistance. You know what I mean.

—RJoly

Defending Democracy: What We Must Do

A year ago this month, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a labor camp under circumstances that strongly suggest Kremlin involvement. His courageous fight against Russian despotism should have inspired a global recommitment to democracy. Instead, we see authoritarianism advancing—both abroad and at home.

Donald Trump, long an admirer of Vladimir Putin, has once again echoed Kremlin propaganda, calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and blaming him for the war—simply because Zelensky rejected his negotiating Ukraine’s surrender on Putin’s terms.

Unsurprisingly, Russian state media has embraced Trump as a political rock star, amplifying his rhetoric to weaken Western resolve.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, our own democratic values are under siege, the rule of law undermined, institutions eroded, and authoritarianism on the rise.

The threats we face today, both at home and abroad, make the world more dangerous for all who believe in freedom.

But we will not stand idly by. We must resist—through the courts, in Congress, and in the streets through peaceful protest.

The fight for America’s soul is far from over. If we stay united, we will prevail. In two years, we have the opportunity to reclaim Congress, hold those who threaten democracy accountable, and ensure that America remains a beacon of freedom—not an ally to autocrats.

—R Joly

Reaping What We Sowed

Like many of you, I shudder at each day’s news. I ask, what have we done to ourselves, electing a convicted felon, rapist, and con srtist, wielding bluff, vengeance, and ridicule to smother dissent—a man nefarious in his acumen for malice, his syntax simplistic, governing by impulse and running the country by the seat of his pants; impulsive and isolationist, bent on walling out the interweave of the world’s nations and reviving imperialism.

Devoid of any empathy, he deigns to displace two million Palestinians from their homeland, negotiate Ukraine’s fate on Putin’s terms, bully allies Canada and Mexico, cut off aid to those in need, disenfranchise America’s working class, while deepening racial divides and fueling the oligarchy of greed.

Denying climate change despite accelerating consequences, he imperils evolution’s age wrought marvels and forfeits our children’s future.

Alas, we will reap what we have sowed; harvest tares and not wheat. —rj

Profits Over People: Trump’s Environmental Rollback

Multiple brown bear at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary fishing for salmon

This past week has been disastrous for the environment and public welfare. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, ramped up efforts to expand fossil fuel production, attacked clean energy initiatives, rescinded EV rebates, placed environmental justice employees on paid leave, and halted crucial environmental litigation.

Trump, who dismisses climate change as a hoax, prioritizes profits above all else. His actions will have dire consequences: higher cancer rates in cities like L.A., more asthma attacks, skyrocketing hospital bills, and increased deaths among Americans.

Meanwhile, Alaska, now opened to massive drilling, is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and threatening the survival of indigenous communities. —RJ

No Easy Fix: Climate Change is Coming for You!


I’ve always liked environment activist Bill McKibben, longtime prof at Middlebury College and prolific writer, though sometimes I disagree.

For example, he recently parried a reader’s hint that just maybe overpopulation poses our greatest challenge in mitigating the exponential fallout of climate change by saying he didn’t think so, given that where population is rising most, Africa, there’s little contribution to carbon discharge .

While that may presently hold true, the reason for this is Africa’s falling short on Western amenities that along with their comfort and convenience, foster carbon discharge.

The fact is Africa is incipiently engaged in catching-up to the follies of more advanced economies in adopting technologies promoting carbon discharge, especially with regard to excavating industries in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As Africa’s clamor for meat likewise grows with surging population, more deforestation is occurring, and we know that spells diminished carbon sinks, fostering destabilization of weather patterns.

As I write, prolonged drought plagues Africa, creating a vast risk of starvation and malnutrition. What it doesn’t need are more mouths to feed.

In game refuges, elephants and even rhinos, seen as competitors for flora and landscape, are being slaughtered to feed a growing population in Angola, Zimbabwe and, yes, in Bechuanaland, Africa’s last great elephant sanctuary.

McKibben entangles himself similarly in joining the chorus advocating more wind turbines, despite emerging evidence of their dire consequences, at least for seabirds and whales, according to the recent 600 page report from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

On the other hand, he’s right about so much of our climate morass.

This year was the hottest on record, with next year unpromising. Phoenix, our fastest America growth city, endured 31 days of 110F temperatures, its emergency rooms overflowing with the burned and dying.

And he’s right—there’s no safe place to move. Vermont, where he lives, sheltered by its mountains, suffered an atmospheric river this past summer, resulting in unprecedented downpours inflicting catastrophic flooding.

Last night, I learned of America’s new housing crisis, this one weather related. It seems 30-year mortgages can’t withstand climate change, natural disasters occurring not only more frequently, but with accelerating violence.

Take Florida, for example, where home insurers are pulling out. Where they remain, and I mean across the nation, annual premiums increases are eroding many homeowners’ ability to pay.

Currently, 9% of the world’s population, or 600 million of us, lives outside what’s known as “the climate niche,” meaning safety zone. By century’s end, an estimated one third of us will fall into this doughnut hole.

Now comes the orange hair threat assuming office, January 20, 2025. Denying climate change as a hoax, he pledges “drill, baby, drill.”

Fasten your seatbelts everyone. Turbulence ahead!

–rj

Early Voters Signal a New Day for America

According to the most recent polls, Harris and Trump are in a dead heat, the outcome uncertain. Sounds awful? Relax!

The polls are wrong.

Trump blew the Latino vote with the Madison Square Garden hate fest. Early voting returns show women voting in record numbers for Kamala. Same with seniors, concerned about healthcare under Trump.

Wednesday morning, a new day for America, a glass ceiling shattered, democracy prevails, and a watching world rejoices.

—rjoly